Final Fantasy XIV’s next expansion, Dawntrail, went on sale for pre-orders today, and immediately crashed the Square Enix Store website. Users heading to the official website for pre-orders on March 26 were greeted with an error message, and found themselves unable to place orders.
With North American pre-orders opening at 9am PDT, users clicking on the website at the top of the hour found the site crashed, with an error message reading “Please Try Again. This website is experiencing a large amount of traffic. Please try again later.” Some users reported being able to load the page, or having the page load, but elements of the webpage not working, such as the “Pre-order Now” page. Fanbyte reporters attempting to access the site experienced similar issues.
But some users, including Twitter user Fusionx, experienced the bizarre situation of being initially able to access the site, only to get a second error, reading “Server Error. Something went wrong… Please try again later.”
The website crash was not the only issue Square Enix encountered as Dawntrail pre-orders went live. Seven hours earlier as EU and UK pre-orders opened at 9am GMT, many users complained of being unable to use card payments to purchase their products. This was quickly fixed, as per a post by FFXIV’s official social media, but prior to this it was recommended customers use PayPal as a purchasing method.
Additionally, Steam users, who gained access to pre-orders globally at the same time as NA found no way to access the codes for their pre-order bonuses. Multiple Fanbyte reporters verified this issue. It’s unknown if this is a bug at this time.
Square Enix addressed the website crashes in a post on social media made 20 minutes after the issues began. They stated they were aware of the issue and working on a fix.
FFXIV: Dawntrail is set for release on July 2, but pre-order users will have access five days earlier on June 28. Pre-order players will also receive a special Final Fantasy IX-inspired Minion, and an in-game set of earrings to boost experience up to level 90.
However, one of the most sought after boons of pre-ordering will perhaps be access to the exclusive Physical Collector's Edition, which contains a Viper job model, map of Tural and other items. These are expected to sell out quickly.
Update 2:01pm EDT: The official Twitter/X account for NA FFXIV is still working to correct the issue, but advises those who want to purchase to checkout as a guest to complete their transaction. Note that this will forfeit your Square Enix points, but a recent post has clarified that those who used the same email as their account can have their points added later.
